Foreign in-laws honored for contribution to Thai community development

Karl Kunz from the United States, Ruben van Beek from the Netherlands, Wayne Pickering from the United Kingdom and their Thai wives received certificates of honor from Mongkol Surasajja, Buri Ram Province Governor, at a special event called "Buri Ram Civilization Opens to the World".

They were selected from some 1300 couples in Buri Ram province, of whom a Thai woman married a foreign man. They provide education scholarship to local orphans, seek support from volunteers of several countries for school renovation, teach English for local people, provide clean drinking water for schoolchildren and villagers.

Buri Ram is one of the largest provinces in northeast Thailand. Of its 1.5 million residents, 87 percent are engaged in agriculture, mainly rice farming.

"I came to Thailand at the age of 22 in 1969 and have been living here for 40 years, I love this land and the Thai people," Kunz, a Washington D.C.-born man said in an interview with Xinhua. "I would like to spend my rest of life here with my wife."